The Trip
by Angaavariel
Summary: A girl trips and finds herself in Middle-earth, but she thinks she been drugged and dumped somewhere in rural Quebec. She wants to go home, and these French midgets are really freaking her out!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even my own characters. *sobs* I'm poor, alone, trying to get by on the streets of Toronto, and someone just stole my pants. Don't ask me how I'm typing this.  
  
A/N: Some of you may remember, this story was posted a while ago on fanfiction.net. I haven't updated in a while, due to issues in my personal life, but I'm at it again, so I'm reposting this thing!  
  
*I* don't think this is a Mary Sue at all, but you can judge it for yourself. It's the first chapter in a series where a girl trips, falls, and finds herself in Middle-earth. The only problem is, she thinks she's been drugged and dumped somewhere in rural Quebec. Well, read it, and review to tell me what you think! Enjoy! :-D  
  
  
  
It all started on a rainy Monday afternoon in early March. The worst kind of day imaginable. As usual, the local weather channel had been wrong when it predicted sunny skies and warm temperatures. I shivered as I pulled the sleeves of my sweater down over my hands.  
  
This was not a good day. Not a good day at all. I was standing, outside, in the freezing rain waiting for my father to pick me up from school. As usual, he was late. My family must have a problem with punctuality, though, because I had been late for school that very morning, resulting in a most unfair detention. After that, I had the misfortune to get stuck with Betty Miler as a lab partner, and anyone who knows the girl wishes they didn't. She talked my ear off through the entire lesson. A bad day got worse when the marks of our French tests came in - a C+ for me, while my friend condescendingly shoved her 'A' in my face.  
  
I should have taken an umbrella. Rain was dripping from my nose, a puddle was forming around my feet, my hair hung in loose, wet strands and I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot.  
  
Finally, after fifteen minutes of bearing the harsh onslaught; bitter winds, hail, and sleet (all right, I'm exaggerating, but it was bad, really), I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. I was going to walk home.  
  
Now this would have been a good plan, were it not for the fact that I had only moved to the city a month before, had no idea how to get to my house from the school, and conveniently failed to remember that it took me twenty minutes to *drive* to school in the morning.  
  
So I started out at a somber pace, head lowered against the elements, the bitter gail tearing at my exposed skin. I'm telling you, it was harsh. I had covered the heroic distance of about three blocks, and you'll never guess what happened.  
  
I tripped.  
  
Normally I would have picked myself back up again, but when I reached for the sidewalk it wasn't there. Imagine that! Instead, I came up with a handful of damp earth, grass, dirt, a worm, the whole bit.  
  
I shook my head and stood up. I appeared to be somewhere in the country side, as there was no cement, streetlights, wires, cars, bums or alley ways, all tell-tale signs of the city. I couldn't even smell the familiar pollution that usually hung in the air. Strange. Strange indeed.  
  
Now naturally, the first scenario that came to mind was that I had fallen, struck my head, been knocked unconcious, picked up by some crazy person, possibly drugged, and dumped out in the middle of nowhere. This seemed like the most realistic possibility at the time. I congratulated myself on my good reasoning. Now all I had to do was find a house. Or a strategically located telephone booth. Either would do.  
  
Unfortunatly, I found neither of these things, and ended up walking most of the day. The terrain was rugged and hilly, not perfect for someone in dress shoes. The sun was just beginning to set, and I was just beginning to panic as I reached a path in the midst of the nothingness.  
  
I heaved a sigh of relief. A path! It wasn't very large, of course, and it was made of dirt, but it would do. As most educated people who have reached the prime age of sixteen know, if there's a path in front of you, it must lead somewhere. And if you're lost in the middle of nowhere and you've possibly been drugged, you should definitely consider following that path.  
  
Well I'm rather intelligent for my age, so I didn't have to consider it at all. As the sun was setting behind me, I was setting off forward down the path. I walked on gallantly into the night, until, understandibly, I passed out from sheer exhaustion.  
  
Apon waking, I got another frightening surprise. My hands and feet had been bound and there were midgets standing all around me. "Gulliver's Travels?" The title of the book which I had recently finished reading for English class (well, I read Coles Notes, and that counts too) instantly escaped my lips.  
  
The midgets, or dwarves, or vertically challenged persons, or whatever the politically correct word for them is, stared at me incredulously.  
  
"What are you looking at?" I said with more than a hint of annoyance, as I stood up. They seemed to be blinking at me in confusion. "What? What's the matter? You've never seen a tall person before?"  
  
One of the dwarves turned and said something to another beside him, and the other replied in the same strange language that the first had used.  
  
I pondered this for a moment, and then smiled in realisation. "Oh, I get it now! You must be French!" I had known that I would have to encounter some French people when I moved to Montreal, Quebec from Windsor, North Carolina, but I had never expected that the French people I encountered would be midgets who dressed weird. "Sorry, I just failed my French exam, but I'll try anyway. Salut! Bonjour! Je suis Colleen! Comment ca va?"  
  
All I got was a dozen blank stares from my captors.  
  
"Ah screw it," I sighed. "Are you going to untie me?"  
  
The midgets shuffled nervously and whispered to each other again.  
  
"You work for the circus, don't you? Are you planning to sell me to the circus? Is that why I was drugged and dumped out in the wilderness? Look, I've heard about the circuses that go on in Quebec, and frankly I'm not too keen on being in one. So if you'll just untie me," I took the liberty of raising my hands which were bound with rope to make a point, "I'll be on my way."  
  
One of the dwarves looked at me suspiciously, then stepped forward and untied the ropes from my hands.  
  
"Thanks, now why don't you do the same for my feet?" I pointed downwards.  
  
They shook their heads, turned around, and started heading off down the path.  
  
"Hey! Hey! Where do you think you're going?! Get back here, you freaks! Fine then, when the police've arrested your sorry asses, you'll be... Sorry!" I sat down and started trying to untie the rope that was knotted snuggly around my ankles.  
  
After half an hour I gave up. The knots were too tight. There was nothing left for me to do but hop. So I hopped. It was slow going, but I finally came to a farmer's field. I figured that if I hopped far enough through the field, I'd come to the edge of it. And, like I said before, I'm quite intelligent for my age, so I knew that there would either be a road, or a house in view when I got to the other side.  
  
Six hours later, I hopped, exhausted from amidst the corn. There was indeed a house in front of me, if that's what you wanted to call it. It was really more of a hole in the side of a hill. I rolled my eyes. What luck! Without knocking, I pushed open the odd looking door, and - whacked my head on the top of the doorframe.  
  
"Fuck!" I swore loudly. I should have known. The dwarves must live here. Well maybe they had a computer, or a phone, or a telegraph, or someway I could communicate with the police. I didn't want to call my dad, because I knew he wouldn't be on time.  
  
Rubbing my head, I entered the house and looked around. There was a corridor in front of me, and rooms leading off at either side. I followed the sound of voices until I came to a large room near the back where two people were sitting. One a midget, similar to the ones I had met before, and the other a tall, old looking man.  
  
"Oh thank God! You're tall! And you're probably bilingual! Look, Mister, you've got to help me. I was captured by one of your French friends here, and they tried to sell me to the circus. I'm not sure where the hell I am, but maybe you can help me. Do you have a cell phone or something...?"  
  
In my excitement I had failed to notice that the man appeared to be wearing a long, grey bathrobe and matching pointy hat. He stared blankly at me, then whispered something to his vertically challenged friend.  
  
"Oh good Lord, you don't speak English either? Well you might as well kill me now, then," this he seemed to understand, and took what I said a bit too literally at that, as he promptly walked over, and tapped me a little harder than nessessary on the head with the large pole he was holding. 


	2. 2

A/N: Somebody asked me in a review whether or not I was planning to have my character join the Fellowship as the tenth member. Well I say, fear not! Just to explain further, she's not in Middle-earth around the time of the Fellowship. I'm going by the books, so when she walked in on Frodo and Gandalf, it was probably many years before the Fellowship was formed. And luckily for her, she won't be staying for that long. Well, on with the story! And remember to review!  
  
  
  
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the wide blue sky above me. At least it wasn't raining anymore, but I seemed to be sinking into the mud. I blinked, stood up with a loud 'squelch', and looked around. There was nothing in sight for as far as I could see, but my feet were untied so things seemed to be looking up. There was no sign of the midget and the scary old man in the bathrobe, but just as well. They obviously didn't own a telephone anyway.  
  
As I took in my surroundings I groaned. I seemed to be right back where I had started. Maybe if I walked in the opposite direction I'd come to a city, or at least a town that was wired up to electricity.  
  
Just as I raised my foot to begin walking, I was forcefully slammed into the ground by something hitting me from above.  
  
"Mother fucker!" Exclaimed a masculine, pissed off, and obviously English voice from above me.  
  
"Ditto," I muttered, and shoved whoever it was off of me. As happy as I was to finally encounter someone who spoke English, I wasn't about to get my hopes up high. I had already been possibly drugged, dumped in rural Quebec, been captured by dwarves, hopped for six hours across a field and been hit over the head by an old guy in a bathrobe.  
  
I stood up and glanced suspiciously at the person in front of me who was pulling himself up and cursing under his breath.  
  
He looked at me and narrowed his eyes. "Who the hell are you? Are you the one who brought me here? You wanna tell me what's going on?"  
  
I rolled my eyes. I could tell that this wasn't going to be fun. This guy had a blue mohawk, and two lip rings, not to mention he was wearing black eyeshadow.  
  
"Look, I have no idea where you came from, but you very rudely landed on me. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to find a way home before my dad dismisses me for dead. Have a nice day," I turned and promptly began to walk off.  
  
"Where do you think you're going? What kind of freak hangs out in the middle of nowhere, wearing high heels?"  
  
I had to laugh. "Freak? Freak? You're calling me a freak? Excuse me, but you're wearing more make-up than I am." I pointed out.  
  
"Fine, if that's the way it's gonna be, I don't have a problem. You go your way, I'll go mine."  
  
"Yeah, well good luck finding anyone around here who speaks English, everyone I've talked to so far speaks some weird variation of French."  
  
He just shrugged and walked away in the opposite direction, army boots squelching loudly in the mud.  
  
"I should warn you, the only people you're going to find that way are the vertically challenged French!" I called.  
  
In response, I got a full shot of his middle finger.  
  
I rolled my eyes again, and, grumbling I set off towards the South. At least I think it was the South. I couldn't tell. I've never been good with directions. I stopped around midday for a rest, and who should come hobbling up but blue-mohawk boy.  
  
"What do you want?" I snarled. At least I tried to snarl. I'd never done it before, and I guess I wasn't too great at it, because he just laughed.  
  
"You were right, I got chased here by midgets, but I don't think they were speaking french. They were yabbering away in something. Maybe Swedish. I don't know. You want a sandwich?" He held out what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, slightly squashed, to me.  
  
I looked it over and wondered if he had poisoned it or not, but soon my hunger got the best of me. "Sure," I replied, hastily grabbing it from him. Between bites, I asked, "so do you just carry sandwiches around with you in case of occasions like this?"  
  
He shook his head, chewing on his own helping. "I was walking to school, these were supposed to be my lunch," he shrugged. "Where am I?"  
  
"Beats me," I replied, taking another large bite. "My-erripped-um-ull."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I swallowed carefully and repeated, "I tripped and fell. I knocked myself out, I guess. I think someone maybe drugged me and dragged me out here... You mean you have no idea where we are either?"  
  
"Not a clue," he shrugged. "I can tell you one thing, I don't think we're in Montreal. I've lived in the city my whole life, which is nineteen long years, and I've never seen this place before."  
  
"Wait, I thought you said you were on your way to school?"  
  
"I was, why?"  
  
"You just said you were nineteen, though."  
  
"I am."  
  
"You graduate high school when you're eighteen."  
  
"I know that," he rolled his eyes. "I failed a grade."  
  
"Ah," I smirked. "That means you're not very smart, right? Which grade?"  
  
"Why the hell does that matter?"  
  
"I just want to know."  
  
"You won't believe me."  
  
"Why wouldn't I believe you?"  
  
"Just trust me."  
  
I laughed. "All right, you fell out of the sky and landed on me, you've got a blue mohawk and you're wearing black eyeshadow and lipstick. You expect me to trust you?"  
  
"Ok, ok. It was grade two."  
  
Grade two?" I stared at him. "How did you fail grade two?"  
  
"I don't know. The teacher hated me. I guess that was it. Might have also been that I never did any work. It was too boring for me. I was doing this, instead," he unzipped his backpack, pulled out a large red notebook with stickers and phrases scrawled across the cover, and handed to me.  
  
I flipped it open and looked inside. It appeared to be some sort of comic strip. The pictures were colourful and bright, and a boy and a mouse, or a rat of some sort, appeared to be the main characters. "You drew this?" I asked, flipping through the pages. "It's pretty good for a second grader."  
  
"That's because I didn't draw it in grade two," he snatched it back from me. "Now who's dumb? I drew this particular one a couple months ago. What I meant was that the idea for the comic strip came to me in grade two. It was like an obsession. I'd sit there in class dreaming up new storylines and characters. Now it's more of a hobby, really."  
  
"Well this is all very interesting, but I'm going to leave now and start walking before I have to spend another night, likely passed out again, in the middle of nowhere," I stood up and began walking. He trailed after me, tucking his book back inside his backpack.  
  
"You think there's a town around here?" he asked, gazing around at the barren wilderness.  
  
"There's got to be something," I stated, more to reassure myself. "I mean, how far can forest and field and grass and dirt go before you reach some sort of human settlement?"  
  
"I think you might be right," he said, squinting ahead. "I think I see something up there." 


	3. 3

Unfortunately for us, the town was medieval in appearance, and the inhabitants certainly didn't speak English. We got several odd looks as we passed through the streets, probably because of Mohawk Boy, who had informed me that his name was Marcus. He had asked me not to call him 'Marc' so, naturally, I did.  
  
"Hey Marc," I said, as a couple more villagers stopped to stare at us. "Do you think these people are going to let us use a phone?"  
  
"I doubt they even have phones," he stated. "Don't call me Marc. These people look like some sort of medieval society. I don't know... Do you think the government knows about these settlements out here?"  
  
"Maybe it's a conspiracy," I suggested. "What do you think?"  
  
He shrugged. "Wait, we're coming to the outskirts now... Uh oh. Those men up there don't seem to want to let us through..."  
  
Indeed, a dozen men were now barring us from leaving the city. I rolled my eyes. This was getting ridiculous. It was time to take matters into my own hands, once again.  
  
"Look," I said, stepping forward and raising my hands. "I don't know where I am, or who you people are, but you can count on the police hearing about this when I get back home. And then, let me tell you, you're going to get it. You'll never escape the finger of justice, or whatever it's called. You'll all be thrown in jail, or maybe executed. Oh wait, they don't have capital punishment in Canada, do they? Well never mind then, you'll be tortured and forced to take lessons in English. Or something. And, by the way, my dad's a judge and my mum's a police officer, so you'd better watch out. Yeah, I'd really watch my back if I were you-"  
  
While I was talking, Marc had taken out a cigarette and made a move to light it. When the flame rose up from his lighter, the men gasped, murmered amongst themselves, and stepped back quickly. We were free to go.  
  
"Well, looks like I talked them into letting us leave," I said happily. Marc puffed away at his cigarette thoughtfully.  
  
"You know those things give you cancer, right?"  
  
"I don't inhale deeply."  
  
"Still, there is such thing as mouth, lip, gum and tooth cancer," I pointed out helpfully.  
  
"Tooth cancer? What are you talking about?"  
  
"You're not very well informed, are you? I bet you don't know about all the other things smoking does to you, then. The smoke gets in your eyes and makes you blind. It's a proven fact."  
  
He snorted. "Proven by who?"  
  
I just shook my head. Some people were impossible.  
  
Another night passed uneventfully. Thankfully, Marc didn't snore, like he claimed I did. I knew it was a lie, though.  
  
We walked until the sun was high in the sky and then stopped by a small creek. "What time is it?" I asked.  
  
Marc shrugged. "No idea. My watch hasn't worked since I fell on you. Neither has my walkman. All I'm getting is static. My cellphone's out too."  
  
"Weird..." I pondered this for a moment. "Why do you think that is?"  
  
"I don't know. I hope it's not because we're so far from a city that I can't even pick up a signal."  
  
I shuddered at that. Then I imagined no TV, or internet, or radio for the rest of my (probably short) life, stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a nineteen year old freak, until I died of exhaustion, or starvation, or was attacked and killed by angry French dwarves.  
  
And then Marc began to cry. Marc, with the blue mohawk, and the army boots, and the black make-up. Marc was crying, like a baby I might add.  
  
I had no idea what to do. I just sat there and tried to think up something brilliant. Finally, I did. "What's wrong?" I asked.  
  
"It's just - I have this - girlfriend -back home and - I miss her!" He said between sobs.  
  
"Oh," I said flatly. I wasn't jealous. Of course I wasn't. I mean, what kind of a guy cried over a girlfriend he hasn't seen in two days? A girlfriend who was very likely ugly, poor, dumb, and overall less of a person than I was?  
  
We sat like that for a good half an hour until Marc calmed down. His eyeshadow had run, so he had to clean it off in the stream.  
  
Finally, we started out again. Marc had pulled himself together and was trying to act like the whole thing had never happened. I wasn't about to let him get away with that, though.  
  
"So what's your girlfriend like?" I inquired. "Is she nice? Is she pretty? Is she prettier than me? what's her name? Does she have a nicer name than I do? Do you think Colleen is a nice name? Hmmm?"  
  
He looked at me oddly, but answered my questions. "My girlfriend's great. She's nice, yeah. She's pretty. I don't know, I guess you two are equally pretty, if that's what you want to hear. Her name's Evelyn. No, it's not a nicer name than your's. Yes, Colleen is a very nice name. Yes."  
  
I was almost satisfied. Almost. I was hungry, though, and growing less and less optimistic about finding a telephone any time soon. I wondered how long I could survive out in the wilderness of Canada. Not very long, I concluded. After the threat of grizzly bears, wolves, the odd moose, wolverines, bob cats, French fur traders, vikings and polar bears, there was still the possibility of falling into a frozen stream, or being lost in the woods, and wandering around in circles until one of the former threats happened.  
  
Fortunately for me, I didn't die that day, and neither did Marc. He managed to make a small fire that night with his lighter, so at least it was close to being warm. When I finally fell asleep, I had the strangest dream.  
  
I was back in the 7th grade, in Windsor, North Carolina where I had used to live. My old friends and I were sitting around in the classroom, talking. One of my friends was holding a large book, but the title was unclear.  
  
"You know Colleen, you should really read Mmmhpphhmmphh," she smiled. I strained to catch the title, but I couldn't. "It's really good. Trust me, you'll like it."  
  
I laughed and shook my head. "Oh yeah right! Mmmhppmmmmhppphh sucks. Only geeks read Mmmphhmmmmppphh," I flipped my hair out of my face. "Get real!"  
  
When I woke up, I tried to recall the name of the book, but somehow I couldn't. It struck me as being extremely important, but I just couldn't place it.  
  
"Oh well," I said, then froze. "Marc? Marc? Marcus? Where are you?"  
  
He was gone. 


	4. 4

"Marrrrrrrrrrcusssssssssssss!!!" My cry echoed in the distant hills as the sun beat down apon my exposed head. At least I was getting a tan. I had walked for hours, and still, no sign of Marc. I was worried. I was afraid. Hell, I was terrified. I was alone again, and Marcus was the one with the lighter and the stale popcorn, which had been my only source of food.  
  
I sat down on a large rock and prepared for the inevitable. I was going to have to think. Really think. I'd never had to do that before; answers came naturally to me. I was a very gifted child. Whatever my teachers might have said.  
  
I put my head in my hands. I thought, and thought, and thought. My mind kept drifting to other things, though, like the party I was supposed to be at that night, or my new C.D player waiting for me at home, or my english paper for school that was late now, or that really cute guy that sat next to me in Geography, or - "Marcus!"  
  
I was so surprised, I leapt up from the boulder and nearly lost my balance. After rocking unsteadily for a few moments, I composed myself. "Who's that you've got with you?"  
  
There was a girl standing next to him, looking pissed. She was younger than me, maybe fourteen or fifteen, and certainly didn't rival me in looks or fashion. She wore a blue, grey and white school uniform, knee high socks and black dress shoes. She had straight blond hair held up at the back in a high pony tail. She glared at me.  
  
"I have no idea," Marcus replied. "She dragged me off in the night, and tried to interrogate me in French. I followed your trail here, and she followed me."  
  
"Great," I said sarcastically. "Look, stop glaring at me. Don't you understand any English? No? Well at least you're not a dwarf. All right, here. Je - suis - Colleen," I pointed to myself. "And you?" I pointed to her. I'm very good at these sort of things.  
  
"She looked mildly disgusted, but replied in a heavy french accent, "Je suis Angelique." She stuck up her nose.  
  
"Angelique? That's a pretty stupid name. I'll just call you Ange, oui oui?"  
  
I don't think she understood me, but she shrugged and said, "Oui."  
  
The three of us began walking. I asked Marcus if he thought she was a native of the area. He said he didn't think so. Her uniform looked like his girlfriend's, and she went to a French Catholic all girl's school in Montreal.  
  
I laughed. This was all very comical. "A French Catholic all girl's school? Hell, that's the top of the food chain in snootyness."  
  
Marc didn't seem too pleased with me after that, as his girlfriend went to the same school. Well that was just another point against his girlfriend for me.  
  
That day Marcus ran out of stale popcorn. Angelique had some imported chocolate, water, and some gross looking diet food in her backpack, and she reluctantly shared with us. She kept the chocolate to herself, though. I was beginning to like her less and less.  
  
~  
  
"It's a conspiracy," I said the next morning, as we headed out. "How do three teenagers from Quebec end up in some remote wasteland, populated with French, or Swedish, or Finnish, or whatever dwarves and old men in bathrobes and ugly guys in medieval towns, for no good reason?"  
  
"Why are you asking me?" Marc replied. "I'm in the same position as you."  
  
"Not exactly the same. You didn't miss the biggest party of the year last night, and I did."  
  
"You should be more worried about important things!" Marc exclaimed. "Like food and water, and safety, and where the hell we are, and whether or not they're planning our funerals already!"  
  
I glared at him. "I have other priorities too, you know. My life isn't as simple as yours."  
  
He rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette.  
  
Up ahead Ange was jabbering away excitedly in French. The morning was still relatively early, and a thick fog hung over everything, so I could barely make out her figure in the dark gloom.  
  
"Hey Ange, what're you jabbering about up there?" I called. She was saying the same thing now, over and over again in French. I sighed. This was just great.  
  
"I think she sees something," Marcus squinted ahead in her direction. "Look, she's pointing and waving her arm. Let's go see was it is."  
  
We quickened our pace and came up to stand beside Angelique. She was still jabbering and pointing like a mad person. I tried to calm her down. "Ange, calm the hell down!" I took her by the shoulders and tried to shake some sense into her.  
  
She yelled what must have been a string of French curses, and shoved me violently to the ground. Just as I was picking myself up, and cursing a good deal in my own language, I saw what had excited her so much.  
  
There, directly ahead of us, were mountains. A whole lot of mountains. Their forms were barely visible in the fog, but they were there. Marc was staring at them, transfixed. Ange had calmed down a little, but was still muttering to herself and shaking her head.  
  
That's when a really bad feeling welled up in the pit of my stomach. There were hills around Montreal. There were even some really BIG hills. But there certainly weren't any mountains of this size.  
  
"There're so many..." Marc said slowly, as if coming out of a dream.  
  
"Hey Marc," I said, my voice wavering a little.  
  
"Don't call me Marc," he responded absently.  
  
"Marcus?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"We're a hell of a long way from home."  
  
Thanks," he replied sarcastically. "Because I hadn't noticed already."  
  
I glared at him. "You don't have to be so cynical all the time. You're really a very difficult person to be around, you know?"  
  
"Oh, good for you, Colleen, what big words you're using now!"  
  
I was just about to kill him, when I noticed Ange heading off in the direction of the mountains. I stared at her. "Why the hell is she going towards them?"  
  
"No idea," Marc sighed. "We better follow her, though."  
  
"Why? Can't we just turn around and hope she looses us in the fog?"  
  
"As much as I'd like to, no," Marcus sighed again. "She's got the food." 


End file.
